Different companies emphasize different qualities when making a hire.  Many companies have job descriptions to serve as a template for the experiences, skills, and education.

There are seven decisions that go into the best hires.

Does the applicant have the talent, skills, knowledge, personality, experience, potential for long-term success, and the personal goals  to fit the job?

TALENT

One evening I was having dinner with the general manager of the Wine Spectrum of Coca-Cola.  In giving me direction on what he sought when hiring account managers, he commented, “I will take talent over experience any day.”

A super talented program developer sees a line of code and mentally runs that line of code into a complete application.  A super creative marketing person sees a product and intuitively connects the product to consumer needs and with equal intuition creates a campaign that puts a sense of urgency in the consumer’s mind to buy that product.  A super talented financial manager sees total costs of  manpower, material, shipping, and marketing requirements against budget and company direction and creates a five-year plan for all the needs within the organizational projections of growth amidst shifting roles with shifting technology and competition.

The best hiring managers assess talent relative to position in every hire they make.  If a person has too much talent for the role, the person is a potential rapid-turn hire.  If the person has too little talent in a developmental role, the person becomes a plug in the pipeline.